Thai-rific

Jeff couldn't resist - at a huge mall in Bangkok

On September 28th, Jeff and I took off for a week-long holiday in Thailand. School was closed for a widely-observed Khmer holiday during which people travel back to their home provinces and visit pagodas to honor the souls of deceased family members. It is also quite a rainy time in Cambodia, (lots of our students experienced flooding at home), so we took the chance to escape to cooler, drier Thailand.

Although Thailand borders Cambodia to the west and is only about an hours flight away, the two are very different. I have to admit that before moving here, I lumped Thailand and Cambodia together whenever one was discussed. From my limited knowledge, they seemed to be one and the same: small countries in SEA, primarily Buddhist, rather poor, gorgeous green rice paddies, etc. The reality is that while Thailand and Cambodia share general climate, location and religion, they are actually quite different, especially when you consider history and economics.

To start with, Thailand remains the only country in Southeast Asia never to be colonized by a European power. It also escaped the fates of its neighbors Vietnam and Cambodia when it came to the hellish trifecta of genocide, war and demolished economies. Thailand experienced an economic boom in the late 80s and early 90s, and is now seen as both a popular tourist destination and a new player on the world stage of industry and exporting. Meanwhile, Cambodia is still doggedly picking up the pieces of its wrecked economy, seeing steady progress only in the past ten years. Just check out the discrepancy between travel guides for the two countries and it's obvious which one has gotten the better end of things.

Although we traveled a lot throughout Asia last year, this was our first time in Thailand. First, we flew into Bangkok and then took a flight directly to the largest northern city, Chiang Mai. We spent four nights at a wonderful boutique bungalow called the Secret Garden, before heading back to Bangkok for two nights. It was a brief trip, but we fit a lot in (thanks to Jeff's close relationship with Trip Advisor) and it was incredibly relaxing. Even though we weren't gone for long, we returned feeling refreshed.

Northern Thailand is really amazing. It's easily 15 degrees cooler than Cambodia, so we did not need to sleep with the AC on. The city roads are paved and maintained, and traffic flow, while considerably less than Cambodia, is actually monitored by law. There are stoplights, turning lanes and highways, sidewalks and curbs. How revolutionary. Our first impression of Chiang Mai was the morning after our late flight and arrival at the Secret Garden. We awoke to a gorgeous, tucked away property including about 15 different bungalows, a open-air communal dining area, a small pool and a wonderful German-Thai family to welcome us. Pai and Peter, the owners, along with their daughter, made sure that we had everything we needed. We started each day with books and breakfast; hot coffee, freshly squeezed fruit juices, homemade German meatballs and croissants. The entire property was serene and quiet, with babbling fountains, beautifully lit trees and a handful of animals including dogs, some birds and a little rabbit in a hutch.

The Secret Garden

It was only a 20-minute ride to the city center, so we went into town every day we were in Chiang Mai. Sunday night we hit the night walking market, which was so much fun despite its tendency toward sensory overload. The streets were closed down to cars and were overflowing with thousands of people trying on clothes, eating pad thai and fresh corn on the cob, admiring paintings by local artists, patronizing the street-side masseurs and people-watching. Despite the amount of people in attendance, the tone was not frenzied and the market itself remained easy to navigate. It had a certain flow and energy to it with so many things to do, see and eat.

Immediate differences were noted between Phnom Penh's night market and Chiang Mai's. First of all, the Thai market was absolutely huge. It expanded in all directions and seemed to encompass anything one would want to buy. We walked for almost three hours and did not make it through the whole thing. Every side alleyway would lead to another enclave of tasty food or products for sale. Not to mention the street performers and amazing people watching. Another difference was the quality of products available. In PP, most items being sold at the markets are mass produced, poorly made and cheaply sold. At this night market, the products were of a much better quality, although you could still find your cheap t-shirts and reproduced photos of the countryside. I also appreciated that in Chiang Mai, vendors were not hassling you to buy their wares. The layer of desperation that often comes through when dealing with Cambodian market vendors was not apparent there. Everyone seemed to be pretty relaxed, many of the vendors interacting with customers who approached them first, others sitting back and playing games on their iPads. The Thai people appeared much more used to seeing and interacting with Westerners. We did not get many stares or second glances, which is the norm where we live. Also, many more people spoke English. We indulged in the street food scene and got a massage, which was really just a chance for us to sit down and watch everything happen around us. The best thing I ate was a dish of mango sticky rice. It was freaking delicious.

Monday morning we were up early and on a bus headed for the rainforest. We had signed up to go on a zip-lining tour and it turned out to be worth the trek. The company was called The Flight of the Gibbon, and while we did not see any monkeys, we pretended to be monkeys for almost three hours. We were in a group with five Chinese tourists, including a sweet 11-year-old boy, and a really nice couple from London. The nine of us had two guides, the primary one called Cash. Cash was not short on funny phrases and encouragements when things got a little scary. We started by taking a bus up a huge mountain, and when we got out, walking even further up the incline. After a few brief minutes of safety instructions, including that we were not allowed to harness or unharness ourselves and a warning about grabbing the rope for fear of zipping over our fingers, we were off. Literally. Without any delay, Cash hooked up one person after the next and literally pushed them off the side of the mountain. The second guide had zipped on ahead to the first platform to unhook us. The whole day was really fun, albeit exhausting. We zipped through the trees among over 30 different platforms, the longest zipline taking about 30 seconds in its entirety. It was exhilarating and challenging, especially in trusting that the line was going to hold you. We were really high up. There were also two sheer drops that we had to repel down toward the end of the day, but thankfully neither was very high. Overall it was a ton of fun and very safely and professionally managed.

Before we took off for zip-lining, in all our gear

After the main event, we had a delicious lunch at a local restaurant and then headed to a waterfall about three minutes away. We hiked up hundreds of misty, slippery steps to get to the top, but the view was worth it. We were also the only people there besides the rest of our tour group, which made it really peaceful and special.

Reppin BC!

After the long day, I fell asleep in the van on the drive back to the city center. That night we stayed at the Secret Garden for dinner. Pai made an absolutely delicious traditional northern Thai dish called khao soi (pronounced cow soy). It has a steamy, yellow curry broth with thick noodles and crispy noodles on top, usually with veggies and chicken. It was so good that we have already sought out a restaurant in Phnom Penh that makes it, although not as well as Pai.

Our last day in Chiang Mai was a little bit rainy, so we headed into town and went shopping. Of course my first stop was at a used bookstore, and I was not disappointed to find out there were actually two huge used bookstores right next to each other. After buying two new books, including Zadie Smith's recent novel NW, I posted up at a nearby Starbucks while Jeff milled around town on the moto. One interesting thing that happened was that two teenagers who had parked their motos outside illegally had their bikes chained together when they were discovered not to be patronizing Starbucks. A police officer stood outside blowing his whistle loudly for a few minutes and when they did not turn up, he wrote them a ticket. It was certainly something you would never see in Phnom Penh.

We left Chiang Mai after breakfast on Wednesday morning and flew back to Bangkok. We stayed in a really nice part of the city, which was easy to get around by walking. The traffic was certainly hectic, which we had been warned about, so getting in a taxi was never really your best option. We had two nights in BKK and spent them at the Sukothai Hotel. When we got there, we were immediately upgraded to a private suite. I still have no idea why, but it was pretty much the best thing ever. We stayed in a room with two bathrooms, a huge living room, a massive bedroom with a California king bed and the best mirrored bathroom I have ever seen with two closets, a shower, a tub and two sinks. There was a private kitchen stocked with an expresso machine and any other amenity you could ask for. We had a private balcony overlooking the pool and two entrances to the room, just in case. We also had something called a pillow menu, which listed the special kinds of pillows we could choose from. The best part? We paid a fraction of the actual price of the room. It was listed on their website as $1200/night. Woo!

Balcony overlooking the pool

Although we didn't have that much time in Bangkok, and no one would have blamed us for never leaving the room and instead indulging in an imaginary life where we were the King and Queen of Siam on holiday from our royal duties, we managed to fit in a lot. Jeff had signed us up for a food tour and we took a water taxi up and down the river one day to see some beautiful temples and the massive Reclining Buddha, a solid gold statue that filled a room the size of an airplane hanger.

On the food tour, which took us to five different local spots on foot, we met a bunch of interesting people, including a couple currently living in Mumbai; he is Spanish but was raised in Germany and she is German with hair like Rapunzel. Also along for the ride was a couple from Indonesia who spoke nary a word and ate almost nothing. Instead, they photographed each plate from every angle. The other members of our group were a North Carolinean woman whose DEA agent husband was in Thailand speaking at a conference, and a tourist from Rio de Janiero, backpacking around Asia on his own.

First on the menu was roasted duck and rice from a Thai Indian place. The original owner was there and had to have been 75+. He was almost blind and used a cane, but damn that duck was good.

Next came both mine and Jeff's favorite dish of the day, a noodle curry with rice noodles, bean sprouts, curry sauce, palm sugar milk, tofu, hard boiled egg, crunchy peanuts, pickled radish and beef. It was served at a very popular Muslim restaurant and the food was made right in front of us by a member of the third generation of the owning family. The storefront was open air and didn't look like anything special. It was not a place we ever would have wandered into on our own, so it was cool that we had the opportunity. This particular establishment also specialized in a cow brain dish which our Brazilian friend was eager to try. I eventually tried it too and it was pretty gross and texturally mushy. You aren't missing anything.

After the first two places, we sat down for a while at the third spot, which we needed to cross the river by public ferry to get to. This spot served northeastern Thai food, including a dish called crispy catfish that looked like honeycomb and tasted like crunchy nothing. There was no fish to be found. It was served with a Thai style papaya salad and spicy pork salad with peppermint. Our tour guide told us that the pork salad is so popular it is actually on the menu at Thai McDonalds and KFCs. This was the spiciest food we had, though our guide told us that Thai people love sweet things and put sugar on everything.

Our fourth stop was a Thai bakery. I could have stayed in there all day because it smelled so good. We tried Thai iced tea, which is made with condensed milk and therefore is very sweet, but I liked it. We also tried two buns, one with BBQ pork inside (very good) and one with green custard (extremely popular in Thailand, but not good to us). Lastly, we went to a more traditional and seemingly more upper class restaurant for green curry and some sort of ice cream. At this point we were pretty full, but it was a nice way to end the day together.

Reclining Buddha

My sexy female leg parts had to be covered to get into this temple, which we thought was the reclining Buddha at first, but clearly was not. Stupid cab driver brought us to the wrong place.

In front of the temple with the small Buddha inside, as storm clouds gather

A final note on Thailand as it compares to Cambodia: its socially and environmentally incomparable. This is a place with multiple vegetarian options on its menus, indicated with a V. It was even hosting a Vegetarian Week in November. In Cambodia, people eat rice and veggies because they can't afford meat every night. At the night market, my mango rice was served on a biodegradable plate, which I read about on a sign printed in English. When I went to throw it away, a woman was waiting to assist me in depositing it into the correct recycling bin. There is not even a basic trash system in Phnom Penh, let alone recycling. I saw ads for weight loss, something no Cambodian I've ever seen struggles with. I also saw an ad for an animal clinic. HA! That will be the day Cambodia makes it to the 21st century. The day they open a clinic for actual animals and people pay for animal medicine. Not to mention the ads for Bangkok's Car Free Week.

Anyway, if you are someone looking to travel to SEA, I would highly recommend Chiang Mai and Bangkok, especially if you are not as adventurous and/or are looking for more of the comforts of home that Cambodia does not provide. Don't get me wrong, I love Camby and all its backwards ways, but Thailand had a lot to offer and gave us a great holiday.

In Chiang Mai at a temple we happened upon; there are thousands of temples in Thailand